Al Pacino Quotes
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I can see [ talent or curiosity for acting] in my oldest daughter [Julia Marie Pacino]. I don't know how long she'll run away from it, but it's there in her.
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Opinions I have about anything are in my personal life.
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When you do these things, you sort of take the journey. The journey is all about how I can interweave the Oscar Wilde story, the story of Salome, the play itself and what it is, what it contains, and my journey as an actor, as a director, as a filmmaker, as a person struggling with whatever I'm struggling with - my own celebrity, my own life. This is semi-autobiographical in terms of my commitment to this kind of thing.
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The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I'm talking about.
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I like, for instance, 'Serpico.' I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could - I could embody him. I could, you know, I could work and get to know him and have him help me with the text, the script and become him. It's almost like a painter having a model to become.
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We're charlatans in a way, we're magic people. Part of the behind the scenes stuff is to loosen you up, to make you feel that you are experiencing this. This is my style, I did it in Looking for Richard, too. And I figure, if I can weave it into the actual play and get the audience interested, like the robes going up and down, they'll pay attention long enough to consume it.
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When I was doing 'Scarface,' I remember being in love at that time. One of the few times in my life. And I was so glad it was at that time. I would come home and she would tell me about her life that day and all her problems and I remember saying to her, look, you really got me through this picture because I would shed everything when I came home.
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The thing that can get you a little upset is when people say other people are better than you. That can bug you.
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Larry Grobel has the illness of all writers, he can't help himself. You're talking to him and all of a sudden, you say, "He's puttin' that in his cash register!"
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Being the actors of the craft, the trade, one of the big things you do and you learn is about repeating. There is something to the repeats. I think that is part of what is healthy to young actors. Get out and learn something just through doing that, repeating.
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A kiss is a lusty dollop of dessert to be served with desire and savored with passion.
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Be careful how you judge people, most of all friends. You don't sum up a man's life in one moment.
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I don’t understand the hatred and fear of gays and bisexuals and lesbians… it’s a concept I honestly cannot grasp. To me, it’s not who you love… a man, a woman, what have you… it’s the fact that you love. That is all that truly matters.
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To be really obvious about something, if somebody straps an M1 on your shoulder and throws you in Iraq, you're going to get a sense of what the hell's going on there. Boy, you'll wake up fast when bullets are flying over your head.
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I wanted to be a baseball player, naturally, but I wasn't good enough. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I just had a kind of energy, I was a fairly happy kid.
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There was a time in my life when being dishonest with women was the natural way to be. I finally said, "Hey, I have to stop this silliness."
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We were doing Scarface many years ago...and I remember having my coffee and looking at the beach, the surf, and I saw a hundred people looking out into the ocean. I thought, what's going on? Did some whale get washed up to shore? So I stood up on the table to see what it was, and it was the director, Brian De Palma, standing there alone by the surf and they were all waiting for him. And I never forgot that because it represented to me what a director is, what a director does.
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I went to Performing Arts because that was the only school that would accept me. My scholastic level was not very high.
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All due respect, and trying to be as modest as I can be: I am a dancer.
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I’ve always been in the theater. I’ve always gone to it. That’s been my way to cope. Early on in my career, I remember running - fleeing - to the theater as a way of coping with all the meshugaas that was going on for me.
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Sometimes you're fighting corporations and forget that people can talk to each other.
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Actors are always outsiders. It's necessary to be able to interpret - and that gets distorted when you become famous.
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I was playing a part of someone dealing dope on a street corner - and there was a guy actually dealing heroin right there. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I got real confused.
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Playing a character is an illusion, and I feel that when you know too much about a person, possibly part of that illusion is disrupted.